{"id":19486,"date":"2020-09-11T05:30:18","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T09:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19486"},"modified":"2020-09-11T07:58:29","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T11:58:29","slug":"album-review-louis-armstrong-live-in-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/11\/album-review-louis-armstrong-live-in-france\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Louis Armstrong \u2013 Live in France"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"One of the most important and influential figures in the music of the 20th<\/sup> century, Louis Armstrong had a recording career that spanned from the early 1920s through 1970, the year prior to his passing. His winning and distinctive personality was a major component of his appeal, but his music remains at the center of everything he did.<\/p>\n

Armstrong left behind a vast body of work, ranging from early sides with King Oliver\u2019s band to his seminal work his own Hot Five and Hot Seven bands to later works. Albums released under his own name didn\u2019t appear until the mid 1940s, and not with any regularity until 1954 or so. So the existence of previously-unreleased Satchmo from 1948 would be a major find.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly what has happened. Armstrong himself made a point of maintaining a personal archive of recordings \u2013 live concerts, radio broadcasts \u2013 and those eventually ended up at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, New York. Dot Time Record entered into an agreement with the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation to release a series of previously unheard music under the banner of The Louis Armstrong Legacy Series.<\/p>\n

The five albums in that series have been (or will be) released on CD, but limited-run vinyl versions have been pressed as well. A portion of the audio from the Live in Europe<\/i> CD \u2013 specifically, Armstrong and his band performing on French radio from the Nice International Jazz Festival \u2013 has been released as an LP titled Live in France<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The audio quality is quite solid for a recording of its vintage, and Armstrong and his band (introduced as the Hot Five) are in fine form. The compere introduces the band leader and Earl \u201cFatha\u201d Hines to rapturous applause, and the rest of the band members \u2013 clarinetist Barney Bigard, trombone player Jack Teagarden, bassist Arvell Shaw and Sid Catlett on drums \u2013 receive raves before they play a note.<\/p>\n

When they do play, the music is very much of a piece with Hot Five recordings. After a spirited intro tune (\u201cMuskrat Ramble\u201d), the band leans into a slow, bluesy \u201cRockin\u2019 Chair\u201d with Teagarden taking the main vocal and Satchmo adding some \u201cresponse\u201d vocal bits.<\/p>\n

\u201cRose Room\u201d features Bigard as its primary focus; the tune is atypically varied for the period, featuring some excploratory soloing as the rest of the band gives Bigard \u2013 and then Catlett \u2013 plenty of space. \u201cPanama\u201d does the same for bassist Shaw. Armstrong takes his first significant spotlight with the final cut on Side One, \u201cSunny Side.\u201d (It\u2019s worth noting for purists that the track sequence on the LP differs from the CD, owing to the length limitations of the LP.)<\/p>\n

The audio quality on \u201cSunny Side\u201d is a notch lower than the tracks that precede it, and Side Two\u2019s opener (\u201cMahogany Hall\u201d) is a bit scratchy as well. But that won\u2019t take away from one\u2019s enjoyment of the performances. The weepy \u201cBlack and Blue\u201d showcases Hines\u2019 deft piano work, and provides Satchmo with another lead vocal spot. The band heads in a more energetic direction with the rollicking \u201cThem Three Eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Live in France<\/i> LP concludes with \u201cRoyal Garden Blues,\u201d in greatly improved sonic quality. The performances on the set were collected from two separate performances on consecutive days of the festival, which may account for the varying audio fidelity.<\/p>\n

Armstrong introduces the instrumental \u201cDear Old Southland\u201d as Hines launches into a stride piano intro, providing a lovely backdrop for Armstrong\u2019s trumpet soloing. The rest of the band sits this one out.<\/p>\n

Ricky Riccardi, director of research collections at the Armstrong Museum, penned an illuminating essay that appears on the back of the LP sleeve. Other volumes in the series (The Standard Oil Sessions<\/em>, Live in Germany<\/em>) document other notable Armstrong performances, but Live in France<\/i> represents the earliest recordings in the series.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most important and influential figures in the music of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong had a recording career that spanned from the early 1920s through 1970, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,49,65,73],"tags":[4126],"class_list":["post-19486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-jazz","category-new-release","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-louis-armstrong","cat-42-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19489,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19486\/revisions\/19489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}